It ran through my mind because it reminded me of your attitude. The title imagine came to mind because everything you offered so far is from your imagination.
So the summary of everything you said is that you provided evidence in the way of scriptures in which you believe to be the product of an ignorant person's imagination to answer my question about how you consider Jesus was God. Not to mention that each verse in your opinion has Jesus becoming God at different times. How ridicules is that? So I ask you again please explain how did Jesus get to be a god in your theology?
The question was: How did Jesus get to be a god in (my) theology?
I can't answer that question because 1) He didn't "get to be a god", 2) "How" is a science question and theology answers the question why.
So I will, instead, try to explain the concept of God, and why it applies specifically to the man, Jesus (Y'shua).
God is a generic, non-specifc, term that applies to an absolute, infinite concept that refers to a Creating event.
Noun
- S: (n) God, Supreme Being (the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions)
- S: (n) deity, divinity, god, immortal (any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force)
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=god
The personification or anthropomorohization of this concept is a primitive mental and social construct to simplify this Creative Agent.
The characteristics of God vary from culture to culture based mainly upon the technological and social evolution of the socieites in which those cultures exist. For the most part, God has infinite, omnipotent, omniscience and transcendant quallities. In some theologies, God is personally involved in the welfare of the creation, and on others is oblivious, EXCEPT when entreated to be involved through supplication, the offering of gifts or through rebellion.
A more enlightened view of God includes the notion that God is not a being at all, but a reality beyond existence, beyond anything in creation. In my understanding, God is more like a universal principle outside of social construction like Truth, Justice, Mercy, Love or like a universally recognized law of existence like gravity, inertia, or fluid mechanics.
Eastern religions have long held that the idea of "personal" god is neither rational nor practical, and that this idea of a "force" or "principle" better explains how human life, and the universe works.
How does this relate to Jesus? Being one of creation and yet being aware of and being able to access the truth and power of this principle sets Jesus apart from other men. Jesus was not the only one who fits this special criteria. I think without a doubt the Buddah, and Martin Luther King, Jr, and Malcolm X in our time also spoke with authority and truth, just as did Jesus.
What sets Jesus apart is his recognition of the extreme difference in reality with which he saw these truths and how he was able to impart this truth in simple, terms for the common person to understand. In contrast, others have been seemingly focused on one or two specific aspects of human life.
That "truth" that existed in Jesus was God in the same way it is when that truth exists in us. (The yardstick for measuring this is in Moses' Ten Commandments: not laws that you must obey, but benchmarks by which a "successful" life is measured.)
So, Jesus did not become a god (except in the theology of the Roman pagans that appropriated Christianity for its own political purposes and in the process changed it.
Jesus (and all humans...certainly all of creation) is God-filled, and the distinction is that most of us are taught and learn very quickly that is it is more fun to be "me" than it is to be a part of the entire creation. We are totally absorbed in the importance of "me", that is, self centerdness or ego-centrism, and it through this "original sin" that we lose are connectedness with the Divine or Sacred.
It is clear that Jesus had little or no concept of "self", at least as he is described in the Gospels, with two significant exceptions: 1) the temptation in the desert and 2) in the Garden of Gethsmane when he cried out for release from his impending trial and eventual execution. Her we see the human (self centered) side of Jesus. Only for a moment do we see it though, because in both instances, we are told, he immediately turned his focus back to the Divine, away from himself.
Does this answer your question?
